Tales of The Strikers
|-|Introduction= Are The Strikers really the cold, heartless killers that we believe they are? Or is there something deeper that drives them? Are they just normal cats like us? Well, this compilation of stories from members of The Strikers will delve deeper into the history of these cats, and help us understand us better. After all, no cat is truly evil. 'Evil' cats are only ordinary cats doing wrong things because they believe it's for a good purpose, but sometimes, they may be wrong. There will be approximately 10 tales and more to come. These tales will mostly be told from a first-person point of view and expands on a certain part of The Strikers' lore. The Strikers is a very fond project of mine and since their universe is pretty large (being a very big organization) I thought this is a good idea to help me plan the history of certain cats better and also develop them better. What do you think of this compilation of stories? It's awesome, Moon! Continue it! Eh... discontinue it and focus on your main fanfictions more. |-|Update Log= January 7, 2020 - Creation of Page, completion of Tale One - Cobra January 8, 2020 - Completion of Tale One - Crown, font changed to Verdana January 9, 2020 - Implementation of Update Log and Summaries tab, completion of Tale Three - Dolphin |-|Summaries= *'Tale One - Cobra': Explains why Cobra founded The Strikers, and what drove her to take the path of crime. Told from a first-person view. *'Tale Two - Crown': Explains how Crown found The Strikers and his rise to power, as well as why he was exiled from the Clans. Told from a first-person view. *'Tale Three - Dolphin': Tells the story of Dolphin's escape from The Strikers, how she became a kittypet and why she rebelled in the first place. |-|Tale One- Cobra= My name is Cobra. Yes, the ''Cobra. I'm famed and feared throughout Twolegplace, and my influence occasionally stretches as far as the Clans that are so hated and despised by some of my subordinates. I believe myself to possibly be the most powerful cat in the Twolegplace, but with great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes my co-leader, Crown, asks me why I created The Strikers in the first place, but I don't answer. I don't often share why I founded The Strikers or my motivations, but you, a particular individual, have earned my trust, more so than Crown could ever do. So consider yourself lucky, because I will finally share the tale of how my group came to be... It started many moons ago. I was fresh out of the Twoleg nest I was born into, and I was learning how to fend for myself in the ferociously competitive world of the Twolegplace. Rogues often stole my food. They scratched and bit me when I came too close. I lived my life day by day in fear, and days when I was particularly lucky, I would get a meager scrap from discarded meals. Even then, it wasn't enough to sustain me. I tried to hone my hunting skills, but the rogues were always too loud and scared the prey away before I could catch it. So I turned to another alternative, one I was unwilling to take up at first. But eventually I took it up, and it earned me a sizable amount of power and control over the Twolegplace. I took up fighting, and perfected it. I could take down a group of rogues all by myself, and soon ''I ''was the one with all the best pickings, and the rogues that used to terrify me in the past were all now crawling to me, begging for scraps. I declined, of course, and left them to starve. But soon I realized that my individual efforts were not enough. You could only achieve so much by yourself. To really accomplish the greatest feats, you needed cats to back you up. And that was precisely what I did. I gathered some like-minded rogues and loners like me, who wanted support from each other, and most importantly, ''power. Soon I had a group of fanatically loyal rogues and loners that were willing to fight with tooth and claw to protect their territory or their food, and my power grew. My name became feared, and I named my group The Strikers, for our ability to strike whenever it was the most unexpected. The Strikers grew and expanded and became highly organized as I realized that the more you specialized in certain areas of crime, the more your fear would spread, and the more power you would have. My concerns shifted from food to influence and power. Power was the one thing that kept me fed, kept my territory, kept my reputation. I needed more of it in order to keep myself me, and perhaps now you can see where this is going. I only wished to protect myself and I had achieved it by using crime to earn power. So I kept using this method, and eventually The Strikers was thriving. I soon expanded The Strikers' reach. I took up offers from other cats in exchange for prey, and we terrorized the Clans, and gained some new members along the way. My group was feared and it gave me purpose. Though I was born with the inability to feel emotion, I could certainly feel something ''when I was told that an assignment was successful, or that The Strikers had been accepted as a new member. Now, at this point, we have reached the present. Self-preservation is second nature to me, and in order to achieve that, I need power. So I keep expanding. I keep doing crime. Because it's the only thing that keeps me alive. It's in my blood. ~The End~ |-|Tale Two - Crown= You may know me as Crown, co-leader of The Strikers. But there's more to me than just leading this criminal group. Often cats ask me where I came from, or how did I discover The Strikers in the first place. I did not answer, for I much preferred withholding information than giving cats the answers they seek. But alas, your insatiable curiosity has swayed me. I will share my story with you, but you only. If you dare speak a word to anyone about this, one word and you'll never say anything ever again. Now that those boring formalities are over, sit down and give me a listening ear... I was once from the Clans. This may come as a shocking revelation, considering how much I despise and hate the Clans, but it was true, no matter how much I wish it wasn't. I was from perhaps the most egotistical Clan, ThunderClan. Not only that, but I was ''deputy, or second in command. I often wonder why I had so foolishly devoted myself to this Clan enough to earn such a high and respected rank. My name back then was Sunblaze and I was perceived to be a loyal and steadfast warrior. But of course, they were wrong. You see, I had a fascination with psychology. How loss deeply affected cats. To find out the link between loss and grief, I performed experiments. These experiments weren't ethical - and were against what the Clans called their stupid set of rules, the Warrior Code. But I did not care, for I had always thought the Code as an idiot's idea in the first place. So I targeted a cat named Swiftflight, and she was perfect for my experiments. I kept targeting her, making her endure harder and more painful losses, until one day she was pushed to the breaking point and went insane. And when a cat goes insane, they have absolutely no control of what tumbles out of their mouth. Swiftflight spilled out everything, forgetting the pact that I made with her. I was exiled, but I didn't feel that bad about it, considering how disillusioned I had become with the Clans. I left the Clans shortly afterwards, but I did hang there for a while because I simply didn't know where to go. But then an answer unfolded right in front of me, an opportunity that I had to grab. A member of The Strikers approached me, a cat named Lion. Now he was a particularly odd one, as he was wearing a mask, or headgear per say. A ''lion ''mask, and it was fitting given his appearance and size. He asked me a few questions, a questionnaire perhaps, and soon recruited me to The Strikers afterwards after seeing my potential and hearing my motivations - to take revenge on the Clans and further continue my studies on psychology. It turned out that he was part of the Assassination unit of The Strikers, and I showed a flair for it as soon as I joined. Once I passed The Strikers' trial period, I immediately spearheaded my first assignment, and of course, the target I picked was Swiftflight. She was efficiently silenced that night, and I pride myself on that assignment still, for it had been one of my finest kills. I climbed the ranks and found myself leading the Assassination unit after beating Lion in a timed assignment to see who could take out the same number of targets in the shortest amount of time, and I took over as unit leader in place of Lion. Lion, of course, had become one of my closest friends, and warmly congratulated me, assuring me that he wasn't angry. And he meant it, because he would soon to become one of my greatest supporters when The Strikers' co-leader, Basalt, left the group. Many fought over for the position of co-leader, but Cobra organized a vote to disperse the fighting and regain unity among the group, and the majority voted for me. I was elected as co-leader and was mentored by Cobra before she left me to do important tasks within the group. Given the fact that I had deputy experience back in the Clans, it wasn't that hard to adapt, nor was it difficult to complete my assignments alongside my responsibilities. I was born for it. ~The End~ |-|Tale Three - Dolphin= The gleam of blood staining my claws. The surprised screams of cats cut halfway by my doing. The piercing cry of the owl ringing out in the otherwise peaceful and silent night. These memories haunt me every time I look back at the forest from my position on the windowsill. Zero's words had swayed me. I remembered him saying that we shouldn't have killed so many cats. We shouldn't have been so ruthless. We shouldn't have harmed innocent cats for our own selfish greed for power. Cobra had manipulated us into thinking that it was the only way to survive, but battles could be solved with words instead of claws, and kindness and respect had always earned a cat more food than brutality and fear. I remembered how the crimes I committed were so terrible. So I joined the rebellion alongside Zero and a few others. I had expected it to be a matter of stealth, not a war. But it had exactly been a war. It had been what I was dreading. I remembered Owl, perhaps my former unit's best operative, sleepily waking up when I made my move. I remembered how angry I was at myself for being so careless when I had always been the best practitioner at stealth. I didn't have the heart to silence her, so I dodged her questions and forced my way out, but Owl had made enough noise with her increasingly loud accusations to wake up ''both ''Cobra and Crown, so the only way was to fight. By the time Zero started mobilizing his plan, most of The Strikers except those centered at other bases and those out on patrols and night watch were milling around Cobra and Crown, who were angrily issuing commands to contain us. Us, the rebels, fought long and hard, and eventually we managed to slay enough cats to clear a path for me to escape. I was the only one of the rebels who survived, with Owl striking down Zero, her own brother, in her rage and fury at his traitorous betrayal. I ran for my own life, even though my lungs were screaming for air and my muscles feeling like they were ignited on fire. I dashed across the Thunderpath outside The Strikers' main base camp and miraculously survived, cutting off those who were chasing after me, and spent the rest of the night and the following morning evading patrols and the night watch. I then made my way to Twolegplace, desperate and starving. I was too weak to catch anything for myself, not that I expected any prey to come my way anyways. My wounds were sapping my energy as the seconds ticked by and I felt too drained to think of a rational solution. The only clear choice was to pull myself onto the steps of a Twoleg nest, no matter how morally wrong that felt, and mewl pitifully and hope that I could catch the attention of a Twoleg. I didn't know how much time had passed before help arrived. The Twolegs living inside the Twoleg nest I had dragged myself to saw me on the steps and they threw me into the belly of a monster and it ran over to some kind of Twoleg medicine den, because the next thing I knew, my wounds had been sealed by some weird thin black string and I had a strangely enlarged and conical shaped white collar fastened around my neck. I hated how it felt, but I assumed it was better than nothing. At least I escaped with my life, and soon I became accustomed with my housefolk's routines and the overall kittypet life. It was far more comfortable than the Striker life and I let myself go, forgetting about my life as a Striker and everything I had done - it was easier to forget than live with the guilt. However, I still remember one thing. I never forgot the last thing Zero said to me on that fateful day of the rebellion. "Everything you've done contributes to who you are today. Take your legacy and do something with it to preserve it, not throw yourself into disunity and chaos and let it be forgotten." ~The End~ Category:Fanfictions Category:Fanfictions (Fanon) Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete) Category:Content (Mooneffects) Category:Fanfictions (Allegiances) Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)